Why 6 Republican Senators Think You Don't Need Faster Broadband (cio.com)

itwbennett writes: Broadband in the United States still lags behind similar service in other industrialized countries, so Congress made broadband expansion a national priority, and it offers subsidies, mostly in rural areas, to help providers expand their offerings,' writes Bill Snyder. And that's where an effort by the big ISPs and a group of senators to change the definition of broadband comes in. Of course, the ISPs want the threshold to be as low as possible so it's easier for them to qualify for government subsidies. In a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, dated January 21, 2016, the senators called the current broadband benchmark of 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream 'arbitrary' and said that users don't need that kind of speed anyway. '[W]e are aware of few applications that require download speeds of 25 Mbps.' the senators wrote, missing the simple fact that many users have multiple connected devices.

Comments

Think?

[Krishnoid]

Isn't it closer to "Why 6 Republican Senators Are Repeating Cable ISP Lobbyists' Talking Points on Why You Don't Need Faster Broadband"?

Re:Think?

[rsborg]

I take it you don't like things like fiscal policies adjusted to inflation?

Because thanks to the ad networks and crazy web frameworks, each site has "byte inflation" every year. Some is better stuff (i.e., more streaming video, higher resolution pictures, richer pages) other stuff is just bloat, but it's all the same.

Re:Think?

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitions change, shill-boy. I remember when Pentiums were 'fast' and 100MB Zip-Disks were 'huge'. Funny how those descriptors become obsolete when technology and standards progress.

I don't really know what your gripe is anyway, given that you've not offered the 'honest way to go about it', whatever 'it' is. Is it that we're finally pressing the established monopolies to provide more than the bare minimum? That we're trying to establish a standard to quantify quality of service beyond rigged speed tests and line ratings of 'up-to xMb'?

Ever heard of 'Johhny Got His Gun'? Joe was 'technically' living, just like 'Anything over dial-up or ISDN speeds is technically broadband.', but it doesn't look like fun.

What's your motive here? Do you like shitty internet speeds?

Re:Think?

[PlusFiveTroll]

>I've been on 25/5 and on 3/1 and really can't tell much difference because most stuff is oversold to be barely tolerable

Just because you live in Comcast or Centurylink's area doesn't mean that other places with better internet don't exist. I currently have 100/10, and would I notice a difference between that and 25/5, no, but the four other people in my house watching videos and playing games don't notice each other slowing down the net either.

That said, until a way to sue ISPs for their complete and total lack of providing their advertized service exists, many places will continue to have crap service.

Re:Think?

[ShanghaiBill]

I've been on 25/5 and on 3/1 and really can't tell much difference ...

You obviously don't have a teenage daughter. The formal definition of broadband is this: A man's wife and daughter can watch two different Netflix movies simultaneously, and he can still get work done.

Re:Think?

[Dahamma]

You may want people to have faster speeds, but changing what terms mean isn't an honest way to go about it.

Bullshit. "Energy efficient" has definitely changed. As has "VLSI" semiconductors, "high speed" rail, etc. Technology advances, and standards will follow.

Anything over dial-up or ISDN speeds is technically broadband.

No, if you want to be technical, bandwidth (NOT "speed", of course, that's silly) does not directly have anything to do with broadband communications.

Broadband means "using a wide band of frequencies" for communication. In practice, no one gives a shit about frequencies used in the raw physical layer, net IP data bandwidth is all that matters. And even if people did care, most of the advances in data bandwidth are not actually just using "larger bands", they are using the existing bands more efficiently. DWDM, 256-QAM, VDSL, etc. As the technology gets better, OBVIOUSLY the standards for average bandwidth to the home will change...

Re:Think?

[bjwest]

Being the majority of the population lives in larger population centers, that is the correct solution.

No, it's not. The large population centers don't need subsidies to get the latest and greatest, the ISPs can afford to up grade due to the large number of subscribers per line. It's the people out in the boonies that need the subsidies, just like in the days they were rolling out electricity, then phones, then water lines.

Re:Think?

[meerling]

Don't forget that all their advertising uses the key phrase 'up to'. That means if it's anything less than the advertised number, they don't give a shit because they never promised you'd get that number, just that you won't get more than that.

Re:Think?

[Sique]

And that's exactly the point of the FCC regulation. Because rural areas currently can't get 4 mbs, and ISPs won't upgrade their networks without any incentive, it was proposed to give subsidies, so those areas also get upgraded.

And the six senators seem to want to hand out those subsidies without the necessity for the ISPs to upgrade their networks first.

Congressmen from Republican party bought off

[pecosdave]

by different lobby group than congressmen from Democrat party. New at 11

They cooperated to get the SOPA and PIPA stuff we fought against so hard crammed into the TPP so whichever evil side you support remember, this left wing propaganda article brought to you by Slashdot.org!

Re:Because it's true?

[0100010001010011]

and my family are a heavy user.

No, no you're not. I telework from home. I have to kick off data file downloads the night before so that they're hopefully here by morning.

Data files that are sampled at 1 MHz that need to be analyzed. I max out my 25Mbit connection constantly. Sending data files back is even worse.

If you want your little part of the country to step into this century and have jobs for this century everyone is going to need 1 Gbit to the home. And as soon as I get 1 Gbit to the home I'm probably going to be asking when 10 Gbit is coming.

If you can get by with 20 Mbit you are not a heavy user.

Re:Business is suffering

[jeffb (2.718)]

No, if I'm not mistaken, YOU are expecting your fellow citizens to pay more tax so ISPs can reap more private profit. That's what this is about -- ISPs want more lenient definitions of "broadband" so they can more easily qualify for subsidies extorted from telephone customers .

Or maybe I'm just stepping in a big pile of Poe again.

Re:Governmental solution to government problem

[meglon]

Broadband in the United States still lags behind similar service in other industrialized countries

Is this a race or something? Is such "lagging behind" — whether it is even true or not — automatically bad?

Perhaps one of the stupidest things i've read today..... We're basically talking about how the US compares to other counties in the basic medium that allows us to compete as a world economy, so YES, IT IS AUTOMATICALLY VERY FUCKING BAD. You may like the idea of burying your head up your ass and dreaming of 1950, but suggesting our country should be able to compete with the rest of the world while they move ahead and we're stuck looking at the inside of our colon is just stupider than shit.

How much is enough?

[duckintheface]

Of course this is a moving scale over time. Right now, for most people, it's about 5Mbps down per person in the household. Netflix takes 3 Mbps. VOIP phone takes 0.16 Mbps. File downloads are usually limited by the server on the other end. I guess that servers will get faster if most folks have faster download speeds. Simple webpage downloads are limited by latency and broadband has little effect. I would really like to hear the case for speeds over 5Mbps/person.

But that's a different issue from what the official "broadband" definition should be. Government subsidies should only go to companies that are pushing the boundaries. Time Warner should not get money for building more of the same slow service.